Lobbying Groups Get Tax Bucks
To Agitate Over Global Warming

By James Sheehan
Research Associate
Competitive Enterprise Institute

(Editor’s note: A recent investigation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that EPA has made a habit of circumventing — or is it violating? There’s a fine line here — laws against federal agency lobbying by paying others to do it for them. The bottom line, however, is that it is taxpayer dollars which are used to influence legislation, and in most cases the immediate goal of that influence-buying is to increase the flow of those dollars to the agency in question. This appears to be yet another example. If only we still had a functioning Justice Department ...)

WASHINGTON — The Kyoto global warming treaty may pose a looming threat to the U.S. economy, but it has spawned a cottage industry based in the nation's capital, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

A review of Environmental Protection Agency grants shows that the federal government has shelled out almost $7 million to private groups that advocate the UN climate treaty. These groups typically call themselves "non-governmental organizations," but can they truly be considered non-governmental when they are on the government's payroll?

The EPA carefully designs its grants to cultivate support for international regulation of energy markets. EPA paid over $1.3 million to "Local Environmental Initiatives-USA" for the purpose of organizing municipal government bureaucrats into a global warming lobby. The Climate Institute received $727,000 to "educate" the public about global warming and the evils of fossil fuels generally. The agency also paid the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security $190,000 to disseminate "objective information" regarding climate change. Of course, "objective" in this context means that it must promote the official interpretation of the Clinton-Gore administration.

Another way to promote the climate treaty is to fund research that supports the government's predetermined scientific conclusions. The World Resources Institute was given $150,000 to demonstrate how the climate treaty would improve public health. Resources for the Future was rewarded $437,000 to show how poor people are traumatized by the "hydrologic effects" of global warming.

To generate support for the climate treaty from business, EPA gave $103,000 to the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy (a.k.a. the International Climate Change Partnership), a lobbying group for corporations such as British Petroleum, Boeing, and General Electric. These companies either seek regulatory protection from competitors or have close ties to the government from their dependence on federal subsidies.

Other EPA grants promote a similar form of business rent-seeking. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the Institute for International Energy Conservation, and the Climate Institute were all paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to agitate for energy restrictions. U.S. tax dollars are being used to propagandize American industry about the need for energy conservation, to write "climate change action plans" for Third World countries, and to manage carbon reduction programs in China. These groups and their affiliates hope the Kyoto treaty will lead to an avalanche of government-funded energy conservation subsidies in the future.

EPA's activities reveal a symbiotic relationship between power-seeking government bureaucrats and rent-seeking "NGOs," each of whom stands to benefit tremendously from the environmental policies they advocate. Legions of environmental pressure groups, business lobbyists and tax-exempt research institutes have been put on the global warming dole. In return for Washington's largess, this vast special interest constituency lobbies the government to give itself stronger regulatory powers.

Who loses from this scheme? Those taxpayers, consumers, and honest businesses who make money the old fashioned way — they earn it.